Soldier On
by TheEleventhIncarnate
Summary: Zachariah tries a new approach to get Dean to say yes. World War Two. Edit: rated T for violence and language. Please R&R.
1. Trenches

Soldier On

Chapter 1 – Trenches

Smoke filled the air. His eyes, his mouth, his lungs, all full of it. It never stopped. It hung over the earth like the rest of the dread, faded as much into the background as the tremors he couldn't feel and the screams he couldn't hear anymore. A Japanese-made gun was heavy in his stained palms, only for the optimistic hope that he could scavenge more ammunition off his fallen foes than friends.

It was difficult to think of how he'd gotten to the point of violating the dead for the sake of his own survival.

Dean had only been there a week.

...

He awoke to the sound of voices. God, these motel walls were getting thinner every day. The last thing in his memory, slowly returning to his conscious mind as he stretched his arms above his head, was settling into a creaky Missouri bed where he could count the mattress' springs by how many indents they were going to leave in his back. Gradually he came to the realisation that there weren't any springs at all. And his outstretched arms weren't met with a headboard, or the wall—or anything else. Dean's green eyes snapped open and he sat up. The cot beneath him squeaked in protest.

"Rise and shine, Winchester," came a voice to his left, and his gaze snapped to a young man in a faded, filthy uniform seated on a cot parallel to his own. The boy couldn't have been older than nineteen. He was even seemingly having trouble lacing up his heavy hiking boots. Either he didn't notice the stunned bewilderment on Dean's face or he simply didn't care.

"You slept in," he said when he spoke again. "Andrews already ate your rations."

Dean rubbed his eyes and looked around. He was in a tent. It was crowded with empty cots, their sheets already neatly made, not one any messier or cleaner than the next. "That bitch," he muttered, and the young soldier laughed. But Dean wasn't talking about Andrews. He had no idea who this 'Andrews' was, and frankly, he had no appetite for whatever rations had evidently been taken from him.

He swung his legs out of the cot, finding them already clothed in disgustingly dirty trousers that matched the other man's in every way except size. A quick glance at his uniform told Dean his name was Miller, but when he lifted his helmet onto his lap, the name 'Scarecrow' was etched into the side. He had no insignia. No rank. The kid was as green as green could be.

"What year is it, Scarecrow?" Dean asked, avoiding the confused stare by pulling a shirt that might have once been white over his head.

"Why?"

The top part of his uniform read similar information as Miller's. 'Winchester' was stitched into the front, though he was missing most of the r. On his arm was only one bar. Apparently he was a Private.

"Because I feel like I was asleep for a month." He wrinkled his nose at the feeling of pulling his socks on. They were cold and damp. "Seriously though, do you know the date?"

"August seventeenth, pretty sure," Miller answered. "I think it's a Monday."

Dean looked expectant.

".. 1942," the boy added.

"That bitch," Dean said again.

...

Keeping his eyes and ears open had proved to be an effective way of piecing together a bit of the puzzle. There weren't many questions Dean could outright ask without seeming insane. Everyone in his squad already knew him better than he knew himself. They were a small group; twelve, including himself. On his second day, he'd discovered a folded and tattered little picture in his helmet. One of Cas, Sam, Bobby, Ellen, Jo and himself.

Andrews had peeked over his shoulder while he looked at it.

"That your girl?" He asked, pointing a blackened fingernail towards Jo.

Dean didn't answer.

"She's cute."

It had to be a dream. He begged himself to wake up. To go home. But he never did. And as the water logged his boots, his socks, his pants and his skin itself, it was starting to seem less and less like a nightmare and more like some kind of textbook-example sick joke. Zachariah had been furious that he refused to be Michael's weapon, but Dean had never imagined anyone could be so cruel.

Seeing the world in ruins in 2014 hadn't broken him. Seeing the world in ruins in 1942 wouldn't break him either.

But he wanted to go home.

The picture remained tucked away in his helmet. It was supposed to have been burned. He had watched Bobby throw it in the fireplace after Ellen and Jo had been killed. Dean was happy to have it back. It kept him grounded to the fact that this wasn't his world and he was going to get back to where he belonged some way or another. It kept him trudging through the cold Makin streams, towards the checkpoint, every step another one closer to the checkpoint. To safety.

The seventh day was the first battle he truly considered a battle. For six days his company had trudged through the mud and the forests, never given a break from the wetness for a second. Occasionally they picked off stragglers and small groups that they came across. But less than an hour after being told they were under a day's walk from the checkpoint, they entered the trenches.

Dean had never been around so much gunfire at once. It thundered out from a million different directions, disorienting him and panicking him. Three men in his group had already fallen before he'd fired a single shot.

"Winchester!" his commanding officer screamed over the noise, snapping him out of his daze. "You're still alive, son! Take out the turret!"

Heart hammering painfully against his ribcage, he lifted his rifle and inched above the sandbags that lined the trench. He kept his head low, hardly more than his helmet peering out of his cover. The turret was at least thirty feet from him, manned by one Japanese soldier and supported by two. He drew in a slow breath, finger coming to rest on his trigger. He aimed. A human face hung in the center of his sights. Just another human, like him. The moment he pulled the trigger, he shut his eyes. Only for a brief moment. The crack rang out and echoed in his ears. When he opened his eyes again, the human face was gone, the turret abandoned and the trenches falling strangely quiet without the chain gun's noise. Dean exhaled a shaking breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding.

"Shit," he whispered, and bit back a yelp when a hand gripped his collar and yanked him back down into the trench. It was Andrews.

"Good shooting, man, but we're not done."

The ringing faded a little from Dean's ears and he discovered that Andrews was shouting. The gunfire hadn't stopped. It had hardly diminished. He swallowed and nodded. They jumped the line together, advancing on the Japanese with their remaining teammates until the enemy disbanded and retreated. A battle no more than twenty minutes long had felt like days. Dean's grip on his rifle was tight enough to make his fingers ache for the rest of the day.

...

He sat by the fire, knife in one hand, helmet in the other. He etched a seventh tally mark alongside the other six on one side. Seven days without Sam. Seven days without Cas. Seven days without even a check-in from the angel bastard that had stuck him in this new form of Hell.

Eight of the original twelve men in his group remained, no longer talking with each other about their girlfriends waiting for them back home. They ate their rations in silence, checked their weapons, rolled out their blankets, and most of them turned in early, wearing the dog tags of their fallen blood brothers around their necks.

Dean took first watch, seated close to Miller, who had written something in his journal and gone to bed without a word. He couldn't sleep anyway and he doubted if his young friend could either. He just wanted to go home.


	2. Night Terrors

Soldier On

Chapter 2 – Night Terrors

Waking up was like entering a cloud. Dean wasn't asleep on the damp, hard ground of Makin island, but on a bed in a dim room. The same room he'd been abruptly pulled from seven days before to be tossed into the past. But something wasn't right.

There was no light except for a fluorescent splash in the hallway, illuminating the filthy carpet and dull wall paint. A quick glance around his room showed Dean that it was mostly empty. His bags were nowhere to be seen. Something, some instinct or fear or maybe both, extended his arm to the night table by his side and opened the drawer to retrieve the bible that was housed there. He flipped through it. Every page was blank. Putting it back, his eyes flicked to the alarm clock; 00:00.

Just a dream, he told himself. Just a dream. But maybe it wasn't. Lately he couldn't tell what was real.

Dean stood from the bed and it didn't make a sound. Walking over to the door heeded no footsteps. Standing in the doorway of his room, his legs wouldn't comply in taking him an inch further. The hallway stretched on forever, too long for him to see the end, only fading into pitch blackness. The light source was, evidently, another room a few feet away, the door barely cracked open, inviting him in. He swallowed his fear in a poisonous lump and pushed the door in, soundless, like everything else, as more of the hall was illuminated.

The room was just like his. Mostly empty, the clock reading 00:00. But the bed wasn't empty. Cautiously he approached it, before all at once reaching out to grab the blanket-covered form by the shoulder and roll it over.

Dean's breath caught in his throat and his heart stopped for a full three beats.

Staring back at him with empty eyes and a frozen look of horror was Sam, Sammy, his baby brother. His skin wasn't just pale, it was white, split by crimson lines stemming from a hole in the center of his forehead. A sudden weight in Dean's hand abruptly drew his attention from the corpse.

A whimper rising in his throat, he threw the pistol down. It hit the floor and shattered into a million pieces without a sound. Blood dripped from the bed sheets, and within seconds a drop turned into a puddle, and a puddle turned into a stream. It flooded and rose around Dean's feet. Then he was moving backwards, eyes fixed on Sam while he backed out of the room, unaware of the tears slipping down both of his cheeks.

His steps were halted by the feeling of his back hitting the wall in the hallway. Without warning, the light in Sam's room went out and Dean was left in the dark.

"No," he tried to whisper, but it was as if he'd gone deaf. He rose his voice and said it again and again. Screamed it. For the sake of Sam. For himself. "No! No! No!"

No sound emerged.

As quickly as the light had disappeared, it was back. Not from Sam's room anymore, though; his door was engulfed in shadows, no longer visible by the new light from a different door further down the hall. Dean didn't want to advance. He didn't want to see what was waiting beyond that frame for him. The smell of iron filled his nose and he could feel liquid warmth spreading beneath his feet and he was overwhelmed with the panicked desire to get away, away from that door he couldn't see anymore and away from the cold, lifeless form of his baby brother, away from the blood that was staining his shoes and his skin and he'd never get it out because it belonged to Sam.

For the first time, he was glad that there was no sound in this fucked up nightmare world, because he couldn't hear the splashing of the blood as he walked away.

The third room was like the second, like the second room was like the first. Void of furniture. Clock reading 00:00. A bed with a concealed figure. Dean shut his eyes, shut them tight. Counted to ten. Something Bobby had taught him to do when he was young and afraid. Now he wasn't young anymore, but he swore he had never been so scared in his life.

At last he opened his eyes.

Nothing had changed.

Defeated, he approached the bed, drew in a deep breath, and pulled back the covers. Bobby stared back at him, ten tally marks cut into the dead flesh of his cheeks, one for every moment Dean had refused to play along. He wouldn't be making that mistake again.

This time he was out of the room before the blood could wash over his boots again. The stench was becoming overwhelming, the hot, sticky, putrid scent of iron trapped in his lungs and mouth and brain as if it would never leave. Room after room, the encounters were the same. Next was Ellen, still stained with tears like the last time he ever saw her. Then Jo, staring straight into him, coated in blood because of him, her lasting expression one of a silent plea. Help me, Dean. I want to live. And it didn't stop there. Again he entered an empty room. Again he willed it all to stop, screamed himself hoarse to wake up, and nothing. Again he uncovered another piece of his past, his heart itself. His parents.

Seconds after he'd revealed their blank faces, the bed burst into flames. dean stumbled back a few steps, throwing his arm over his mouth and nose, but there was no smoke. Just flame. And that horrendously distinct smell of burning flesh.

He sprinted from the room and collapsed in the hallway, feeling the legs of his pants soak up the inch-deep river of blood. Tears streamed down his cheeks even when he shut his eyes.

"No!" He screamed again. Whether he could hear himself or not, he could feel himself losing his voice. "Enough! Enough!"

And for the first time in what felt like decades, Dean heard a voice.

"I'm here."

He didn't open his eyes. Not right away. He didn't want to find out that it was just an echo, or his own hopelessly traumatised mind. Slowly, he could feel the pool of blood draining away below him, as if someone had pulled a plug nearby. The voice, perhaps. He lifted his gaze and was met with an outstretched hand, an open palm. Castiel smiled down at him.

"I'm here," he said again.

Trembling, Dean raised a hand and took Castiel's, the warmth so much different from the heat that had coated him with the blood. It calmed him. With the angel's assistance, he found his way to his feet, lips moving to speak, but not finding the words to say. Not finding the thank yous.

"Cas," was the only word to leave him, and he was astounded at his own voice, not because he finally had one, but because the single syllable had been so broken. The hand that had rescued him hadn't yet released its grip. He was grateful. But then there was blood.

"I'm here."

At first it trickled from Castiel's blue eyes like tears, sliding down his cheeks, creasing into the indent of his mouth and dripping off his chin. Dean shook his head. Not Cas. Please not Cas.

More and more lines appeared. Cracks in the skin. They grew longer, patterned across Castiel's face, deepening until that comforting smile was lost in all the wounds that surrounded it. Dean held his hand tighter, unable to move anything else. He watched in horror as the face changed, fell away, and became something completely different, not the saviour he'd thought it to be at all.

Zachariah.

A grin broke out through the deformed remains.

"Ready to say yes yet?"

Dean tried to let go, but he was frozen to the spot, trapped. His mouth worked uselessly without words to respond with. He just wanted to go home.

"Never," came the reply, whispered, all strength flooding out of his body like the blood flowing from Zachariah's face. Then he was released and he was falling, falling, with no floor to catch him, only darkness. When he jolted upright, gravity holding him to what he recognised as ground at last, the light blinded him. Smoke filled his lungs. Someone had thrown a fresh log on the campfire.

"Hey," a sleepy voice came from nearby, and Dean turned to see Miller, young Scarecrow, propped up on his elbow and rubbing his tired eyes. "You okay?"

Okay. he was okay. it had been a nightmare. A nightmare within a nightmare where nightmares were real. No, he wasn't okay. But he nodded.

"I'm just.." Dean fumbled for what he was trying to say, coughing to clear his throat. His voice was back and it was fine. "I'm not supposed to be here."

The fire crackled and he glanced over at Miller. Even in the darkness of the late night, he could see the frown crossing the young soldier's worn out features.

"None of us are, man."


	3. Breathe

Soldier On

Chapter 3 – Breathe

Getting back to sleep was an impossible task, but Dean knew he'd need a few hours or he wouldn't be able to get through the rest of the day. They never knew when they were next going to run across the Japanese. His weapons nearby in case of a late night ambush, he tossed and turned, seeing the dead eyes of his family and the cracks in Castiel's face and the humans he'd murdered simply so that he wouldn't take their place. When a hand suddenly came to rest on his arm, he was awake in an instant, grabbing it and twisting it until he heard Miller shriek.

"It's me! It's me! Friendly!"

He let go and sat up, rubbing his tired eyes against the light of the morning. Miller was rubbing his arm, no more frowning than he was pouting.

"Shit, Winchester, I'm just try'na wake you up in time for breakfast," he caught sight of the dark circles under the older man's eyes and the lines of concern on his forehead deepened. "You look like shit."

"Thanks," he muttered. The conversation ended there.

They were in the final stretch, a few hours' walk from the checkpoint. There, the dog tags and letters could be sent home, the wounded would be extracted, and the reinforcements would join the squad. Dean had a sinking feeling he would be sticking around a while longer. The rations were damp, like everything else, and he didn't have an appetite for it. He ate anyway. With less than three hours of sleep, it wasn't going to be an easy day. They were even on the move earlier than usual. Everyone wanted to get to the camp as soon as possible.

Trudging through the mud and murky waters was the same as the last few days, but he hadn't gotten used to it. No one had and no one could. Dry and clean was something the island just didn't have for them. Before, it had really pissed Dean off—but today he was off his game. The grip on his M1 Garand was loose, and he'd secured his bayonet wrong not once but twice, having to dig through the stream to get it back and replace it on the end of his gun. He was dragging behind. Either Miller was as tired as he was or he was pulling back to keep an eye on the older man. Ridiculous, really; Dean had been trying to watch out for the kid, and now the kid was watching out for him. Hopefully he was one of the boys going home once they reached the base. Dean may not have belonged in the war, but Miller had been right. He didn't belong there either.

The hand signal was given to get down and Dean missed it entirely. A strong hand from his sergeant forced him to his knees before the man followed suit. He said nothing, but the warning glare said enough.

"Eyes on," someone whispered, and he lifted his rifle, scanning ahead. At first, he didn't see anything but trees and vines and an impossible amount of God damn mud—

Then he spotted one. Two. Three and four further to the left. Two of them were heavily camouflaged and holding large barrelled sniper rifles, the other two likely to be their spotters. They were faced the other way. Heading to the American camp, maybe. That made Dean clench his teeth. They were probably heading out to massacre the whole place, including the teams heading that way, their minds already set on getting in a helicopter and going home. Who knew how many fire teams had already fallen at the feet of those four men.

His finger thought faster than his brain. One of the snipers was in his sights and a shot went off, startling him until he'd registered that the shot belonged to him. Hit through the shoulder, the Japanese soldier dropped his gun and clutched at the wound, the rest of his team turning to fire on their attackers. Dean fired again. The wounded man fell.

"Open fire!"

Garands and BARs fired from scattered places of cover, behind rocks and ducked in bushes, too many for the surprised squad of Japanese. One was hit in the jaw and blood poured from the gap below his mouth, soaking the front of his uniform before he was hit three more times, a burst from a BAR catching his neck and chest. He fell with the rest of his teammates. Unlike the other times his group had gone through similar, equally gruesome motions, Dean didn't feel guilty this time.

That scared him.

A quiet fell over the area until the assured soldiers knew it was over and a series of clicks could be heard from each of the men, reloading their weapons in case of a second run-in.

No one spoke; the order to keep going was nothing more than a few shared looks and a grim nod. They had to step over one of the bodies to keep to the path. Dead eyes stared at them, through them, up to the sky where some of the Americans hoped their souls had ended up. Dean wasn't one of them. He hoped those soldiers were burning. Ripped apart like he had been. If he deserved it, so did they.

Soon enough there was a break in the trees and when Dean heaved a sigh of relief it felt as if that had been his first breath in years. It was a small camp; a few tents, the portable kind that could be folded up and mounted on a man's back if it had to be. Comfortably, they fit three at the most. Usually five or six ended up squishing in. But it was better than nothing. Unless the weather was nice. More often than not, dean had been among the few to nut up and sleep outside, where maybe it was a little colder and more exposed, but at least he wasn't inhaling the CO2 of his comrades. Aside from the tents, there was a cleared valley big enough for one of the smaller sized helicopters that dropped off and extracted troops. The transport had already arrived and a group of new soldiers stood scattered about, checking their weapons, chatting with each other, looking anxious.

Around the fire pit that was nothing more than black and ash were logs made into benches. And on one of the logs made into benches was someone Dean could have recognised anywhere. He was checking over his M1, and the trench coat wasn't over top of his uniform like he would have appreciated it to be, but it was him.

"Cas." His gaze lifted from his gun as Dean and his squad broke the tree line, but he hadn't heard. Dean slung his rifle around his back and cupped his hands to his mouth, calling louder this time. "Cas!"

Blue eyes snapped up again, alarmed, almost, meeting the oh so familiar green ones. His mouth dropped open and the bullet slipped from his fingers, ignored in the dirt below as he stood, leaving his rifle to lean against his former seat. Dean broke into a sprint, crossing those final meters in a matter of seconds and crashing into his friend's arms. He was still clean. Castiel was the only thing in weeks to not smell of blood and dirt. Dean, on the other hand, was streaked with both, but neither man seemed to mind. They also didn't care for the opinions of other soldiers as their arms wrapped around each other and squeezed to the point of making breathing a difficult task. Even when they separated, Dean kept a grip on Cas' sleeves, smudging mud on the new uniform without taking any notice.

"Dean." It was more of a sigh than a word.

"Cas." Dean's lips, cracked and swollen at the bottom of one side, turned upwards into a smile, the first one in what felt like years. "What are you- how did you- how long-?" He tripped and stammered, too disbelieving that he was even talking to a familiar face. His grip didn't ease up—in fact, it tightened, fearing that releasing would mean letting go of Castiel and he didn't want that, certainly not now, and really, not ever.

"I was looking for you, Dean." He moved his arms to pry Dean's fingers off of them, glanced around at the other soldiers, some of which were staring at them and most of which were too exhausted to care, and gestured his friend to where he'd been sitting before. Although the log-bench was far from comfortable, Dean had forgotten how good it felt to be off his feet.

"Please tell me you know what's going on here," he said.

Castiel looked tired. Tired, pale, more fragile than Dean had ever seen him before. It was beyond worrying.

"You know what's going on here."

Silence fell between the two. Their eyes met again, both men seeing something so much different from what they remembered. Green had been dulled and hardened, seeing but wishing they couldn't. Blue had lost nearly all of their shine and no longer mirrored the ocean but resembled the sky above; cloudy, streaked with smoke, torn by conflict. Castiel was the one to break the gaze, returning his attention to his rifle, adjusting the blade attached to the end. To anyone else, the bayonet would seem to be oversized, but otherwise normal. Dean recognised it in an instant. He'd attached his angel blade to the Garand. Clever bastard.

"I'm not saying yes," Dean suddenly remarked, voice low. His friend only shook his head.

"I know."

Again came a bout of silence and Dean watched Castiel, too many things to ask. If they were both there, was Sam, too? Was there a way of getting out? Was Cas trapped too, or had he tracked Dean down of his own free will? He opened his mouth to speak when something caught his attention that had slipped his weary mind before. The angel's chest was rising and falling as steadily as his own.

"You're getting good at that," he said, and Cas looked up from his gun, eyebrows creased with confusion. "Breathing, I mean. Very convincing."

"Mm." Again those blue eyes avoided his. There was no more maintenance to be done on the Garand anymore. Castiel was just fidgeting with it so he wouldn't have to look at Dean. "I should hope so. I'm human now."

Dean could feel his heart stop in his chest. Memories from 2014 came flooding back. Castiel being human, Castiel being _depressed, _useless in comparison to his former self and so drugged up that there was absolutely nothing in him, not even pain. That hurt the most. Dean didn't want to see that again. He shook his head. Say it ain't so.

"How?"

"Zachariah."

No more explanation than that. Dean snatched the weapon away from Castiel, forcing him to meet his eyes like before. "Cas."

"I couldn't find you, Dean. Not on my own." He grabbed his gun back, and though his gaze didn't fall away entirely, it couldn't focus on Dean's eyes. He trailed it along Dean's dirt-smeared face, his cut and swollen lower lip, his ear that was so covered in dried blood that he wasn't sure if it was completely intact anymore. He looked over the uniform, the name barely legible, the insignia the same as his own, and wondered how much of that blood belonged to Dean. Cas sighed and spoke again. Quietly. "Zachariah agreed to send me to you. He neglected to fill me in on the details of the contract."

"You didn't—"

"Have to? I did. You don't belong here."

Dean hung his head, letting his chin rest on his chest. The sight of his boots, once olive green, now crimson with the blood of his friends and foes, made him nauseous and he closed his eyes. He didn't belong there. Neither did Castiel. But according to Miller, neither did anyone else. That was something that hadn't quite left his mind yet.

He glanced up, much to the protest of his exhausted eyes and neck, and found Miller without much trouble, talking to one of the new arrivals. They looked to be about the same age. Miller's smile was the same, but.. there was something else there. Dean couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"What about Sam?" He asked, eyes fixed on the young troops. When part of his squad started getting on the extraction helicopter, Miller didn't look twice. He wasn't going home today.

"Present day," Cas answered. "They're letting Lucifer talk to him alone."

"We have to get back," Dean muttered.

Castiel's lips pressed into a thin line as he watched the helicopter fill.

"I know."

...

Dinner was a fresher set of rations than the latest had been, considering the last few days had consisted of the last of their supplies, which also meant food that had been sitting in a warm, damp pack for much too long. Dean's squad was grateful—Castiel and the new troops, on the other hand, didn't have anything so terrible to compare it to. They didn't enjoy it nearly as much.

The squad had returned to its proper number of twelve men. Four of the original, remaining eight had gone home, leaving only Dean, Miller, Andrews, and their sergeant, Hudson. Dean hadn't caught the names of any of the new guys. He'd get to know them eventually. In the end, he'd ended up squishing into one of the tents, on his side so there would be more room for his teammates. Miller had his back pressed against Dean's, and Castiel's protests had gone ignored when Dean dragged him into the tent to sleep on his other side. In the dark of the night, no sounds outside the thin walls of the tent but bugs and birds, Dean buried his face in Castiel's shoulder. It didn't feel like the trench coat. He had to wonder if he missed it more than Cas did. At least the man still smelled the same.

And despite being as exhausted as every other night, tonight was different, because he didn't seem to dread sleep so much. He breathed in. Out. His fingers clung to Castiel's sleeve like before. It wasn't home, but it was as close to it as he'd felt so far.


	4. No Rest for the Weary

Soldier On

Chapter 4 – No Rest for the Weary

Consciousness brought on a sense of clouded dread that was beginning to feel too familiar for Dean's comfort. The first thing he became aware of was the fact that the warmth he had fallen asleep to had not moved. Castiel's uniform was still gripped in his fingers and he could still feel Miller's frame moving with every breath. He opened his eyes and saw nothing but darkness; the light of day hadn't risen to shine through the thin material of the tent. He slowly sat up, eyes falling to where Cas should have been, but he could hardly see more than the man's outline. His fingers relaxed and released the uniform's fabric, trailing along the length of Cas' arm and wrapping around his hand. There was no reaction, obviously; he was asleep.

Still something loomed over Dean's shoulders. Something wasn't right. Well, a lot of things weren't right. But he had this terrible feeling...

The cry came moments later, much less surprising than it should have been.

"Ambush!"

Gunshots rang out, the characteristic single fire sound from an M1 mixing with the Type 100s surrounding the camp. The soldiers in Dean's tent bolted up one after the other, Cas along with them; he glanced down at his hand briefly, then up at Dean, who withdrew his own and didn't hesitate to get out of the tent. In the darkness, he couldn't recall where he'd left his rifle, so he settled for grabbing a nearby BAR and taking cover behind one of the military jeeps. He fired everywhere the forest lit up in short bursts, only able to assume he'd managed to hit his target if the firing stopped. There were no guarantees.

By then the rest of his squad was out of bed and mimicking his tactic—find some cover, guess, and shoot. Someone, he couldn't recognise the face out of the corner of his eye, tried to sprint from a tent to where Dean had his back to the car. The man had almost made it when three or four bullets tore through his arm and leg, causing him to stumble and fall, screaming in pain. Dean stood, but fingers caught a handful of the back of his shirt and yanked him back to cover. Cas.

"I have to help him," Dean shouted over the never ending bursts of rounds.

Castiel shook his head. "There's too many. You'll be hit too."

Dean tore his gaze from Cas' eyes, black in the darkness and fixed on his, to glance back at the fallen soldier. It was hard to see, but he swore the man was still breathing. Dean pushed the arm until it released his shirt and lifted his rifle.

"Cover me."

"Dean—"

He stood, firing half a clip blindly into the tree line before sprinting towards the marine on the ground. With the drop of his heart, he realised who it was, bleeding out at his feet and adding red to the already hopelessly stained boots. At least he had been right about one thing; Miller was still breathing. Bullets screamed passed his ears and over his head and he threw his weapon down and hooked his arms under his friend's. A quick glance up and he saw that Cas was upright, still behind the jeep but firing a series of controlled bursts wherever the Japanese happened to give away their positions, and the firefight was diminishing by the second.

Dean kept his head down as he dragged Miller. He wasn't going to let this boy die. The young soldier that should have been in school. The young soldier that didn't belong here. The young soldier that had to go and remind him so damn much of his baby brother, little Sammy that deserved the hand he'd been dealt as much as Miller did, but Miller still had a chance, and Dean was going to _make sure _he made it.

"Grenade!" One of the newer troops screamed in warning, and Dean's instincts kicked in immediately. He dropped to his knees and threw himself over Miller, head snapping up to catch a glimpse of the explosive between flashes, just in time to see it rolling under the jeep.

"Cas!"

He turned and Dean reached for him, outstretched arm ending with an empty hand that flailed, flexed and closed around nothing. The last thing he saw was the detonation, the smaller explosion before it caught on the vehicle, which burst into flames. He saw Cas abandon his weapon and move to dive for cover. He didn't see anything else, because he'd hidden his eyes from the brightness and shrapnel, ducking his head and covering it with both arms. The jeep went off like a firework connected to an amplifier. It was deafening, and although Dean could feel Miller's blood seeping into the front of his shirt, he was off the man in a moment, no longer required as a human shield.

His ears were still ringing as he stumbled towards the blackened frame of a truck. The enemy had started to retreat, with the exception of one or two. The rest of Dean's team picked them off wherever they spotted movement. But he stood in the open, unarmed, stunned, covered in blood.

Where was Cas?

"Winchester, look out!"

He turned towards the ravaged screaming, met with a Japanese soldier, bleeding heavily from a graze wound on his cheek. He rushed forwards, arisaka at shoulder height, bayonet pointed directly at Dean's chest. He was dimly aware of the American troop that had warned him firing and missing every shot.

Dean's hands shot up and took hold of either side of the rifle's barrel, struggling to stop its advance. The two soldiers struggled and fought for control over the weapon, the Japanese troop pushing and pushing it forwards, set on sinking the blade into his enemy's heart. Abruptly Dean yanked on the gun, pulling the other man off balance long enough for him to shove forwards again and rip the arisaka from his hands. Dean spun it around and drove the bayonet deep into the soldier's stomach. Their eyes met, and Dean turned the gun, ripping the skin around the entry wound. Blood poured from the Japanese man's mouth. By the time the blade was withdrawn and he fell to the dirt below, he was already dead.

Dean threw the weapon down and glanced over his shoulder. Two crowds caught his attention; the one around where he'd abandoned Miller, and another, smaller one no more than six feet from the jeep. He sprinted to it, legs heavy and weak, collapsing underneath him beside the body.

"Move," he muttered, shoving the medic aside. Somebody had already closed Cas' eyes. He'd never see their striking blue again.

He wiped the blood from Castiel's singed face with a trembling hand.

"You can't be dead," he whispered. "You can't do this to me. You can't. Wake up, Cas, I need you."

There was a hand on his shoulder; someone trying to pull him up, to his feet, away from his friend. He fought it off and suddenly his team was restraining him, the sergeant gripping his forearms too hard to pull away, making him stand up. He struggled and shouted as they draped a filthy sheet over Cas' form.

"He's not dead! Stop it, he's not dead! I need him!"

The back of Hudson's hand struck Dean's cheek hard and his gaze was forced away from Cas.

"You listen to me, private. He's dead and there's nothing you can do about it."

Dean began to protest again when a second explosion sounded off, not similar to the one that had murdered his best friend but exactly the same. Yet his gaze wouldn't leave Hudson's as the sergeant began to grin, and it became clear that it hadn't been a vehicle, it had been them. Heat crawled up his legs and that horrible smell of burning flesh filled his lungs.

"Well, there is one thing you can do," Hudson said, his voice a low, predatory growl. Flames licked at his face and melted the skin, patches becoming nothing but bone. Dean could feel the fire spreading throughout his own body, not just on the outside but on the inside too, leaving him unable to make a sound while every square inch of him burned and there was nothing he could so about it.

Except—

"Say yes."

He bolted up, soaked with sweat and tasting blood. He'd bitten a sizeable hole in his lower lip. Slowly, rubbing at his sleepy blue eyes with one hand, Castiel sat up beside him.

"Dean?" He whispered, so as to not wake up the other men. But Dean didn't answer; his grip on Cas' uniform was tighter than before. It hadn't moved. He released it and crawled out of the tent, still breathing heavily. He ran a distressed, shaking hand through his sweat-beaded hair and paced, eyes fixed on the silent line of trees surrounding the camp. All a dream.

God, he was never fucking sleeping again.

A hand came to rest on his arm and he spun, pushing it off. Cas held his hands up in surrender, looking tired, confused and concerned all at once.

"We have to get out of here, man," Dean mumbled. He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes and shook his head. "Fuck, Cas, _we have to get out of here._"

Without any kind of warning, there were arms around him. Cas had never been any good at comforting, but Dean sank into the embrace immediately, his body too worn to resist it. His face hid away in the fabric of his friend's shoulder. Still he trembled. Cas only held on to him tighter. There were no words of comfort to be offered, no words spoken at all. Nothing more than a hug. It spoke more than either of them could possibly say anyway. When Dean shut his eyes, though, breathing in the familiar smell and slowing his heart rate back to normal, all he could see was that burned and bloodied face, those closed eyes, that terrible sense of finality that let it set in how alone he had been without Castiel. They were both human now. They were both mortal, able to wound, able to be wounded, able to kill and be killed. Unnoticed, a tear escaped his eye and seeped into Cas' uniform, leaving behind one small, darkened stain.

Not for the first time, the thought crossed Dean's mind, and had he said it aloud, which he never dared to do, Castiel wouldn't have been any surer. Were they even going to make it out alive?

Neither of them got much more sleep that night.


End file.
